Name: Veal, Mutton or Chicken Hash
Ingredients: meat (veal, mutton, or chicken); salt; pepper; thyme or sage; hot boiled rice

Why it works: Pepper and thyme are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Veal, Mutton or Chicken Hash

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Chop the meat very fine.
Season with salt, pepper, and thyme or sage.
Line a bowl with hot boiled rice.
Place the chopped meat in the center of the rice.
Let it cool completely, then turn it out of the bowl.
Bake in the oven at 350°F (175°C) until heated through.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,585 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Thyme + ricetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together912 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Pepper + ricetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,379 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Meat + ricetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,481 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Meat + thymetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,008 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).